About the research
There is concern about levels of data and statistical literacy skills of UK social science students ([4], [14]), even though the cutting edge of social science is reliant on use of real world datasets, and there is a great desire to improve research-led teaching in the area. The Real World: Real Data: Real Stories project collates the experience of attempts to upskill students in data and its discipline-related usage, and provides an illustration of educational practice at both discipline and national level.
Although the UK provides access to a rich set of social science data resources, students often avoid handling and discussing data in their study unless forced to confront it. The challenge for educators lies in promoting students’ use of data, but the benefits in doing so improve both academic performance and job prospects for students. Efforts in the UK have focused on developing learning activities in university teaching programmes to address this challenge. This case study focuses on a project carried out in summer 2009 with a remit to produce some evidence of how teachers use data resources and the impact on the student experience.
The project used a case study approach to bring to life the experience of the challenge faced by educators in attempting to improve the data skills of social science undergraduate and postgraduate study in the UK. Groups of teachers at several UK universities were interviewed; the interviews were written up to provide several case studies – or stories – and audio or video recordings of key issues were embedded into the stories.
The case study presented here provides details of attempts to make learning and teaching with data for econometrics at undergraduate level a less passive experience.
Aims and objectives
In 2009 Mimas carried out an initial study of the use of real world data provided through its social science services (including internatonal macrodata) in learning and teaching. The focus of the research was on gathering qualitative evidence through narratives about how these real world data services are utilised within taught courses, and how they impact on the student experience. The remit for the study was to:
- Provide examples of articles and multimedia content that collectively showcase the benefits of selected Mimas services to the learning and teaching community (learners and teachers in UK post-16 education) and to build on service support expertise by collating stories about the impacts of those services on the educational experience.
- To enhance understanding of how such services support and build the skills base of the nation’s undergraduate and postgraduate community (in information literacy, geo-data literacy and statistical data literacy). Mimas wishes to improve the skills-based activities supported by its services.
- Enable each of the services to tell an engaging story including:
- How they are being used in learning and teaching
- What benefits arise, and to whom, direct and hidden, from the availability of the services?
- What can be done to embed the services in the learning and teaching experience and what will be achieved by this embedding?
- How will this benefit the service providers and others in the future?
- Provide a report recommending ways all Mimas services can consider building on this work to benefit the learning and teaching community.
Methodology
Semi-structured interviews were carried out with lecturers at several UK universities. The project covered several data services, with this case study focusing on the international macrodata – then available via the ESDS International service. Lecturers from the Universities of Manchester and Loughborough who use data in their undergraduate or taught postgraduate research were interviewed and asked questions about:
- how they use the data in teaching
- to what purpose
- whether it enhances the skills base of their students (4) whether they had evidence of feedback from their students
- whether they could comment on the skills with regards to employability and
- what advice they could offer for improving the use of the data service in learning and teaching.
Impact
References and acknowledgements
Thanks Sarah Currier who acted as consultant to this project as well as all those who participated in the interviews especially Paul Turner at Loughborough, Nick Weaver at Manchester and John Stillwell at Leeds (as reported in this case study). Staff at Mimas who contributed to the project in any capacity are acknowledged with thanks.
- Economic and Social Data Service Annual Report 2008-2009
- Economic and Social Data Services Trend Data Report July 2003 – July 2009, JISC.
- International macrodata monthly usage data
- MacInnes, John “Proposals to support and improve the teaching of quantitative research methods at undergraduate level in the UK.” 2009.
- Rees, Philip, Mackay, Louise, Martin, David and Durham, Helen (eds.) 2008 “E-Learning for geographers: online materials, resources, and repositories”, Hershey, USA, Information Science.
- Developing the collection of historical and contemporary census data and related materials into a major learning and teaching resources (CHCC).
- Census learning and teaching materials
- Landmap Learning Zone
- Countries and Citizens: linking international micro and macro data
- UN Millennium Development Goals e-learning materials
- Understanding Population Trends and Processes (UPTAP) project.
- ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM).
- Methods@Manchester: research methods in the social sciences
- ESRC Quantitative Methods Initiative: Undergraduate Pilot Projects .
- The ESDS International Service (now integrated into UK Data Service)
- Census Dissemination Unit Service(now integrated into UK Data Service).
- Intute
- Case studies using international macrodata
- Census Programme Monitoring Reports, JISC Monitoring Unit.
- Casweb: web interface to census aggregate outputs and digital boundary data
- Currier, Sarah. “Mimas learning and teaching stories project: final report”. 2009. (Internal document)
- ‘Helping economics students ‘keep it real’’
- ‘Census data – from the real world, for the real world’
- How to download data from ESDS. Now superseded by ‘How to get data from the UK Data Service‘.
- How to access IFS data using Beyond 20/20.
- Carter, Jackie ‘Real Data: Real World: Real Stories’ at Coalition for Networked Information Spring Meeting, Baltimore, 2010
- Carter, Jackie ‘Telling stories with and about data (research based)’ ELI2010, Texas
- Carter, Jackie ‘Telling stories at ELI2010’, Issue 19, ALT Online newsletter.
- Carter. Jackie ‘Innovation in learning and teaching session’ at JISC/CNI conference 2010
- Carter, Jackie ‘Telling stories about and with data’ IASSIST 2010, Cornell University
- ESDS International Youtube Channel, (now superseded by UK Data Service Youtube Channel.
- Learning and teaching with real data: data and resources
- Research Assessment Exercise RAE 2008 geography and environmental studies results
- The InFuse project
Publications
All the interviews were written up and multimedia outputs (video and audio files) made available to the project team.
The News Stories
The first outputs from the projects were two news stories that were made available on the Mimas website in October 2009. The two news items showcased the benefits of using real world data in teaching to our users and key stakeholders [22], [23]. Key quotes from lecturers interviewed that demonstrated the benefits of data use to the student experience were elicited.
Case Study: An example of data used in teaching econometrics:
This case study – or story – is based on the interview with Dr Paul Turner at the University of Loughborough.
A Student’s Journey Through Econometrics Data is based on a taught 2nd year course over two semesters and worth ten credits at the University of Loughborough. The learning objectives are clearly stated as: subject knowledge and understanding; subject specific skills; transferable skills. As part of the course students are required to undertake an activity in which they can investigate topics such as consumption, investment and imports for a number of countries (up to nine) using the international macrodata. This makes the topics all the more relevant and interesting for the students. The course has been tailored over a number of years and has addressed some of the earlier problems the lecturer faced (such as giving the students too much data and too much choice in variables to analyse).
Paul Turner who delivers this course talks about how students can gain essential skills thus improving their job prospects. He sets students the task of working through projects in labs, to extract, then re-extract data any number of times, thereby trying out different methods and learning from their mistakes, without worrying about losing data. He regards this as a risk-free way to gain statistical, computer and information skills, which are directly applicable to the workplace. Students have the opportunity to develop a portfolio of realistic project work, which they can use to demonstrate their skills and experience to prospective employers. In an area that’s often seen as dry and difficult, using real world economic data makes study more enjoyable – and enhances employability. Indeed Paul goes on to explain:
“Econometrics is not a popular subject, because we have loads of students who find it technically hard. But the feedback I get is that they actually quite enjoy doing the project, because it is something practical and they can see that there may just be an application for this that they’ll use when they leave here.”
“I always start the econometrics course off by telling them that if there’s one course they may actually make use of when they leave, it’s probably going to be this one.”
Paul Turner also talked about linking the international macrodata resources with other freely available interfaces, such as GapMinder. And as a result of this study he has made available some resources he has created for his students openly on YouTube [24] and [25].